The first question in Buce Pandolfini’s column, The Q & A Way, on the chesscafe website begins: “I had some keen interest in chess at High School but after raising three children and a busy career, chess went off the radar.”
I thought back to my youth spent playing baseball. When I stopped playing, baseball never ‘went off the radar’, and I have been a fan all my life. I wondered what it is about chess whereby it ‘goes off the radar’? Why do more players not become lifelong fans of the game?
The question continues: “Now that I am in my middle age, and the children have grown up and left home, I have got interested in chess again. I attended a couple of local tournaments but was rather disheartened at the number of younger children competing in the adult grades and winning. There is much talk of children being professionally coached at ridiculously young ages now. I also noted that a competitor at the world youth championships was seven years old and had a rating of 2012, this makes my 1400 pale in comparison. I was wondering do you know of any player taking up the game in middle age ever rising to the title of IM or grandmaster or are older players like me doomed to a steady decline in ratings and brain cells (at least Korchnoi gives me hope).”
Thinking the question came from an American, I was astonished to learn it came from Savern Reweti, of New Zealand! I have heard much the same from many adults here in the states.
Since I turned fifty in 2000, I have been a strong advocate for Senior Chess. It has been my experience that, given the opportunity of playing in a Senior event, players for whom chess went ‘off the radar’ will come back to the game. Some of them will only compete in a Senior tournament because they do not like playing with children. In conversation several have mentioned the high energy level and the constant fidgiting, something older players, for the most part, no longer do, as the energy level has ebbed.
There seems to be a disconnect between scholastic chess and adult chess. Consider the statement by an outgoing president of a state organization about the incoming president: “He comes from the scholastic side of chess.” Different people on separate occasions have said to me, “I don’t know much about adult chess, as I’ve only been involved in scholastic chess.”
Adult members of the USCF are vastly outnumbered by junior members, and there is power in larger numbers. Consider this question by larryfoushee on the forum of the Kentucky Chess Association website (kcachess.org), Is KCA now a puppet to scholastic chess?
It elicited this response from Ken McDonald: “The scholastic events draw a lot more people and make money.
So how does it feel to be subsidized by youngsters and their parents?”
larryfoushee answered with: “it feels bad.”
It sure as hell does ‘feel bad’, especially considering people with this kind of attitude have not been around long enough to know that at one time the situation was the reverse and it was SCHOLASTIC CHESS being SUBSIDIZED! The fact is that the rise in scholastic chess has come at the expense of adult chess! An example would be the American Foundation for Chess, which was to be used for Grandmaster chess, but was co-opted (I have heard the word ‘hijacked’ used), and the money diverted toward scholastic chess!
I have, unfortunately, experienced this kind of attitude from many ‘on the scholastic side’, especially in regard to Senior chess. Only fifty or so players attended the US Senior this year. Add two zero’s on that for the attendance at the Supernationals this year. Ten times fewer attended the US Open. During an email exchange with the president of the GCA, Scott Parker, I wrote that I would like to put a zero on the number of players at the Ga Senior, US Senior, and the US Open. Mr Parker replied, “Enough of this nonsense.” NONSENSE! I will admit it may be asking for too much at this time to expect to be able to put a zero on the number of participants at the US Senior, especially taking into consideration something pointed out to me in an email; that being the fact that there may not be five hundred Senior members of the USCF! Yet, could it not be a future goal for which to aspire?
I am galled and appalled, but not surprised, that anyone would write such a thing as “How does it feel”. I think of the greatest Rock & Roll song of all time as I write this; that being Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. How does it feel… About having to be scrounging for your next adult tournament?
I have previously written on the BaconLOG about attending the Supernationals and the US Open this year, and the disparity between the two. I played in the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls South Dakota in 2002. There was a scholastic tournament held in conjunction with the ‘adult’ tournament. Fortunately, the scholastic event was only on Saturday. It was a zoo! The disparity between Saturday & Sunday could not have been any more pronounced. I mentioned this to the organizer, Dee Knudsen, who said that, “Without the scholastic tournament, there would not have been an ‘adult’ tournament.”
I played in a Grand-Prix tournament in Orlando some years ago at a hotel undergoing renovations. Not having one of my better tournaments, I went to the bar for an adult beverage, where I met a pretty flight attendant, and we struck-up a conversation. She was surprised to learn I was actually playing in the tournament as she thought that, with all the children and parents, it must have been a junior tournament. I recall her saying, “I always pictured a chess tournament as being quiet and dignified. This is more like Bedlum!” She also said the airline personel did not appreciate all the children running around like ‘chickens with their heads cut-off’ and had complained to the hotel manager and the company for whom they worked. The perception has become that chess is for children. The perception has become the reality. Is it any wonder so many adult players have gravitated toward adult games like poker?
Scholastic chess is viewed as separate and distinct from adult chess; of that there can be no dispute. Scholastic chess ‘pays the freight’, so to speak. Without scholastic chess, there would be no USCF. Those that derive income from chess know only too well that scholastic members buy more equipment and books, etc. than adult members. They do so not only because there are more of them, but because younger players become involved, and purchase what they need, before dropping out and moving onto something else, with the chess stuff going into the closet. It is taken for granted they will be replaced by other youngsters ‘coming into the system’. Chess is, therefore, being run like a pyramid scheme. If, for whatever reason, juniors stop entering the pyramid, there are not enough adult members to support the USCF. What would happen to scholastic chess if a pedophile, like Robert Snyder, for example, were to kill a student? With the 24/7 infotainment cycle, everyone in America, and the rest of the world, would learn of it, and down would come the pyramid.
Why are there so few adult members if the object of scholastic chess is to bring in more members? Some time ago I had an adult player tell me that the influx of junior members bode well for the future of chess. He was stunned when told I had recently read on the USCF forum that only three percent of scholastic members went on to become adult members! Money and resources have been aimed at scholastic chess for a generation now. If the object were actually more adult members, then why are there vastly fewer adult members than there were when the scholastic movement began? USCF has not even retained the number of adult members it had a generation ago. Imagine how strong USCF would be if it had simply retained those members…The question has to be asked: Have adult members chosen to leave because of the children’s explosian?
In theory there should be only one chess. I am reminded of a quote by Chuck Reid:
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.
In practice there is a schism between adult and scholastic chess. If scholastic chess is bigger and stronger than adult chess, it is because it stands on the shoulders of those who have come before them.
This is a subject close to my heart,…and age.
I have long said that Scholastic Chess in its job of giving children a hobby for life, into and through adulthood, is a dismal failure. A good number of Scholastic oriented people have disagreed, but the statistics don’t lie. There are very few adult players that came solely from the Scholastic Chess programs. Junior Chess is indeed a different animal than Scholastic Chess, so please don’t confuse the two.
In Peoria I note that the people that were involved in the scholastic programs and not involved as Juniors with the adults in our clubs and tournaments have ALL dropped chess. The only fellows, now in their twenties, that are still active all were Junior Chess players, coming to our adult club and tournaments first and foremost, then playing in Scholastics because they could. The Scholastics were an “extra-curricular to Junior Chess” activity for them. These young men did not originate in the Scholastic programs at all, but only played in them because they were of the school age and therefore could play that way. I also observe that other areas in Illinois are similar. For instance, I see about a zero adult population active coming from the Scholastic programs in the Bloomington/Normal, Illinois area where they have had a huge scholastic program for a good number of years now. To date the Twin Cities Chess Club, in Bloomington, has about 8 members, four older adults and four Junior kids. In comparison, Peoria has and average of 18 to 24 people attend, with no real Scholastic program feeding it AND most of the members are adults with only 2 or 3 Juniors in attendance.
I have long promoted Chess as an activity primarily for adults that kids can play as well. This is how it should be, after all.
But, there is big money in Scholastics. The sheer number of kids, giving a few dollars apiece make for lots of money to make.
Joel Benjamin was in Bloomington/Normal a number of years ago, speaking at Illinois State University about writing and Deep Blue to a literary group. The local chess club got him to speak to a group of interested people that evening. My friend and president of the club, then, invited me. I had the opportunity to sit next to Joel at dinner that evening, before he gave us the program. At the time I was in my 40’s and told Joel that I had started playing chess in my 30’s and wanted to get better. I asked him about lessons and how he thought I should go about getting good ones. His response to me was that no good chess teacher really cared about adults, literally. He said that he made the vast majority of his income teaching kids of people that could afford to pay him his rates. He also said that adults really could not expect to do well in chess. He was certainly not interested in discussing adults playing and improving, as he thought it was a fruitless discussion. Now Joel Benjamin lives in New York City. I certainly would expect him to at least recognize that adult players can and should be able to enjoy and improve in Chess, even if it is not something he personally deals with or is concerned about. But understand, there is big money to be made by adults in Scholastic Chess. Realize all the revenue sources available from giving instruction, books, equipment and paraphernalia, and tournaments.
I disagree that the USCF could not exist without the Scholastic Dollar. Sure, we wouldn’t have as much money to urinate away, but we could still survive, thank you very much. What’s wrong with having a “small” group of 30,000 - 40,000 dedicated and quality interested people? The answer to that is, “Nothing.”
I wonder whether the lack of scholastic players who go on to become adult players might have anything to do with the amount of support that scholastic players are given. Not that they don’t deserve support – far from it! But there’s the kind of support known as “scaffolding,” in which you give a learner the necessary guidance to reach the next level, then gradually take it away as he does more and more for himself; and there’s the kind of support in which the “learner” primarily learns that someone else will do everything he doesn’t feel like attending to for him and that he doesn’t need to take ownership of his own progress. The phenomenon of “helicopter parenting” – in which parents constantly hover over their children, ready to swoop in and intervene whenever the smallest obstacle presents itself – is well documented, and I assume that chess parents are no different from the parents of other kids who lead activity-heavy lives. Is it possible that by doing too much for scholastic players – and, more to the point, by requiring them to do very little for themselves – we create scholastic players who stop playing when they reach young adulthood because their parents are no longer around to handle the management side of things?
I’ll offer two reasons for this and they are somewhat intertwined. First, chess really doesn’t get much in the way of mainstream reporting. If you don’t hear about something on a regular basis, you start to forget about it. You hear about baseball all year long, even when the season isn’t happening. Now this is a many part problem. Part of it is the nature of chess. If someone can figure out a way to make it like The World Series of Poker, we’ll have a hit. Another part is that the USCF struggles with communication.
The final part of the problem is the second reason for people letting it drop off the radar. Chess is awful with tournaments. There are not 3-4 main tournaments a year to follow, like tennis. Tennis really isn’t a sport I follow that much anymore, but I will switch it on for one of the Grand Slams. Golf is the same way. There may be a ton of golf tournaments, but only a handful get wide media exposure and you know which ones are big. The USCF needs to heavily promote 1-2 yearly tournaments that have the ability to attract the casual person.
Fascinating post.
For standard chess in equal time controls… chess is chess. Though I readily acknowledge adult and scholastic are viewed as separate by many.
I might suggest that one difference is that it isn’t easy for some adults to interact with some children, and vice-versa. Not to mention your example… It’s not necessarily easy when you’re a 40 year old to be schooled by a 9 year old. 
Or pwned. 
(ETA: And if you succeed in winning: From the outside world, “Congratulations! You just beat a 9 year old.”)
As to why it falls of the radar… I can only say in my own case. My hobbies have always waxed and waned, though the older I get the more fixed in my ways I become. I have been off-and-on with chess for about 28 years or so.
Currently, I don’t play chess merely for the game itself, or to win every game, or my as-yet-nonexistent rating. I play to interact with people. So, that requires a) people to interact with, and b) people who want to do more than just play, but also interact with me.
ETA: I think it comes down to what one’s goals are in playing chess. No goals / reached all goals for oneself = eventually leaving.
And this is also a large part of what I play for. In Peoria, we have a good number on club nights, but I also will get together with others to play, go over concepts, and generally socialize. My club in the LaSalle-Peru area is much the same on a smaller scale.
This is not just for me though. Shortly after I started the club 2 years ago, it became commonplace for 3 or 4 of the fellows that had never met before my club to get together on their own to play chess, go over concepts and generally socialize.
Chess is certainly a great hobby. It doesn’t leave too much of a hangover (hangover, just tell me how you feel after a tough Saturday Tornado tournament). It keeps the mind active. It’s great for all ages and physical abilities.
The concept as to why youngsters from the Scholastic realms don’t continue on as adults, is certainly a conundrum. I do see some children, in our club, as Juniors with their father or mother coming along. I agree that if the child is doing any activity and someone else does everything for them, they may not continue the activity as they age. As I think of it, all the young men in our Peoria club are there and have been there on their own steam and motivation. They continue to come back, as adults, on thier own as well. Perhaps “anj” has this right.
Perhaps we need to encourage the adults that run the scholastic programs to educate the children and/or their parents that this should really be something the child wants to do, and then have the child really be the one to do it.
Another element that I just responded to in the BaconLOG, Ron, is that just because one doesn’t continue playing chess as a Junior/Adult under the aegis of the USCF does not mean one is inactive in Chess. In this day and age, one can go with ICC, FICS, Playchess, or a B&N without retaining USCF membership.
If one wants to play scholastically, however, USCF seems to be an essential (either JTP or scholastic membership.)
Just a thought.
Basically, if chess “takes” in a kid, I guess he’ll seek out the best he can find, and that will be the adult world / chess club environment. He then becomes a “junior” player. If he doesn’t take that step beyond scholastic chess, he isn’t all that independently interested.
What’s not clear is
(1) whether scholastic chess creates more junior players than there would be otherwise, and
(2) whether scholastic programs could be run differently to create more junior players.
It’s hard to think of what else USCF could do. Virtually all our chess clubs (whether formally affiliated or not) and all our events are open to kids, even though adults sometimes don’t like it. And in addition, we run scholastic events that are only open to kids. I’d say that if scholastic chess could work, we are giving it every reasonable chance from our end.
I have a greatnephew in Maine who plays scholastically. My sister says there is enthusiasm at traveling to school team events. I doubt that nephew would pay the cost of traveling way way away to national tournaments, and I know that money for professional coaching in their town does not exist. I emailed the town library twice, at a six-month interval, offering the Laszlo Polgar book and offering to get some Pandolfini books. They just don’t answer. Sister will take the Polgar book to greatnephew and then I will snail-mail the town library, enclosing copies of my emails and rescinding the offer.
I suspect this report is closer to the grass roots than is the mob-scene report heading this thread.
What about his local chess club, and whatever little events they run, USCF rated or not? I didn’t have a coach, and I didn’t go to big events until the World Open landed 25 miles from me in Philadelphia.
I never went to the National HS Championship because our principal wouldn’t spend a nickel to send us to New York. And we had 3 A players, so I believe it was not impossible (though unlikely) that we could have won!
I’m sure it depends on where he lives in Maine. It’s a very big state with some fairly remote areas.
I ran an unrated scholastic tournament at our town’s library back in… '99, I think. It didn’t even occur to me to check if scholastic chess was present in our town (or school district.) Nor did it occur to me to run it rated under the USCF banner, even though I believe I was a USCF member at the time. I just consulted with the strongest player I knew of in the town and the town librarian. Turnout was around 8-10 or so… can’t remember for sure.
It didn’t even occur to me to become a TD, then, even though I owned a copy of the rulebook. Had I stayed, who knows?
(Little town in rural Washington state, about 2,500 people - and I think that included the population of the minimum-security prison we had in town. I also donated a huge chunk of my chess library at the time - not a huge amount of books, when I left there in about 2000 or so.)
And David, you could always have your sister take the books directly to the library and ask what their donation policies are. Here in B-N, books that are donated to the library tend to wind up in the Library fundraiser sale pile. (I’ve never been sure if they take out books they specifically might want to circulate, or not. The library still gets to make money off them, which assists their budget. Not to mention that when I think of ‘chess library,’ the public library here is not the first choice I think of… )
I can understand chess has a problem as far as the media is concerned. News covers the “man bites dog” stories and, if all one hears about chess is about our “colorful characters” and their escapades, one can get a negative view of it in a hurry. When depicted in fiction, there has been no effort to use the names of real chess openings or tactics until very recently. There is no legion of spectators or fans familiar with how the game is normally played or how players normally act. One can watch any familiar sport and catch on as to the object of the game, but chess is strictly a participants’ game–without having some skill level at chess, no one would be interested in watching the game. Fischer-Spassky was the exception that tested the rule.
In Mississippi during the 90’s, scholastic chess paid for practically everything else until the parents formed their own organization Miss. Chess about. Eventually the MCA and MCSA got back together or at least are cooperating more.
I didn’t play scholastic chess until I was in high school–couldn’t interest any teacher in junior high to sponsor one.
Although I ran a number of tournaments and coached a few teams, only a small handful of students actually read chess books, sought strong competition, and went on to Class A or better. I may have another young chessplayer in the family: a potential stepson of my younger stepson. Time will tell if he does anything with the book I gave him for Christmas. It’s too early to add him to my blog.
I just saw a new post while working on this. In the early 80’s after burning out I gave most of my chess books in English to the library. Right now I don’t know if I would ever want to play in a senior event, but that could change.
I think David Letterman said it best when he opined, “There just isn’t enough televised chess.”
The problem is that there’s no way to make chess interesting enough for television. For something to be successful in TV it has to be simplistic enough that one can understand the gist of the game in a few minutes. Player throws ball, another tries to hit it, and if the batter hits the ball he runs to the white bags. If he makes it back to where he started, his team scores a point. The team with the most points at the end of a set period of time wins. I realize that that’s an extremely over-simplified description what with all the various rules and statistics and strategies involved, but you get the point. All other major sports are even easier (football, basketball, hockey, golf). People will get it almost at a glance. Not so much with chess.
With chess you have to know how the pieces move, recognize patterns, be able to pronounce the player’s names, etc. It’s not fit for television. But without TV our only resource is the Internet. Not doing so good right now with that.
But the problem IS how to attract the casual person. Chess is too complicated for the Average Joe and most people don’t have the patience to learn it or the ego to admit they don’t get it. Personally, I don’t think you can make chess appealing for someone who doesn’t have the desire to take up the game. Either they want it or they don’t. It’s that simple.
Quite true. Without any explanation it will soon be obvious a player is trying to do something with a ball (or puck) and there is a very real chance it will not go exactly where he wants it or an opponent will try to stop it (or him). OTOH, if Qg6 wins at once and it’s your move, nothing but the clock (rarely) can physically prevent you from playing it. The only question is can you see it or could the opponent have done something to stop it earlier. A non chess playing potential spectator couldn’t, couldn’t care less about it, and wouldn’t pay for the opportunity.
In baseball, it might still be difficult to figure out why a team with 13,000,000 points loses to a team with only 430 though.
We moan about retention rates and trying to keep kids interested in chess beyond the scholastic scene. But lets think about all the other competitive activities that children participate in. Swimming, skiing, tennis, skating, little league baseball, football, etc. Some kids will continue in these activities as long as there is an opportunity. The kid in little league may play baseball in high school if he makes the JV or Varsity team. If he’s got talent he may get a college scholarship or get drafted. Most of the kids that go through little league will stop because they’ve lost interest, or don’t see chances to go on. Perhaps in 20 years one of those former little leaguers will join his company baseball or softball team to participate the social aspect of such an activity. Maybe his son or daughter will become interested in little league baseball and he’ll get involved coaching or umpiring.
Other sports are the same way. The interest is there for some period of time. For some regardless of talent they may continue to participate on some level or another through their life. Some sports like tennis or golf that may have a membership organization requirement for participation probably see numbers drop off at some point. It doesn’t necessarily mean the person has stopped playing the game. She may have chosen to play socially instead.
Is chess different then other organized competitive activities? YES. Are we immune to the fickleness of kids who lose interest in one thing, and take up another thing? NO
Chess is different in that adults and children can play in the same tournament and compete for the same prizes based on ratings. You go to some of the big tournaments that have under 900 sections and you’ll see adults playing with lots of kids. In the higher sections you’ll still see lots of kids competing against adults. I like that class events such as the National Chess Congress have sections for much lower rated players. It gives kids with low ratings a chance to play people outside their little circle of scholastic tournaments. This exposure to non-scholastic chess gives them a different perspective on chess, and gives them an opportunity to interact with adults in a different manner then usual. Many adults might prefer that the kids just play amongst themselves, so the adults wouldn’t have to deal with “OMG I just lost to an 8 year old!” or “I beat an 8 year old. Big deal.” However I think that adults with that mentality are missing out on the joys of interacting with children on a whole different level. I like the energy that kids bring to a tournament. Can they be annoying at times? Yes, but hopefully we can help them learn what it means to be playing with and amongst adults, and the responsibility and behavior that is expected.
In terms of the fickle factor, it’s there. I’m sure many parents can list the number of different activities their children have tried and dropped. They can probably count the number of hours and the money invested in such activities that now are far in the child’s rear view mirror. Chess is just another one of those things. If we’re lucky the kid may return to it many years later. I’ve met a number of adults who have come back to tournament play because their child is now doing chess at school. So if takes scholastic chess involvement to get an former member back into the fold is that such a terrible thing?
One of the nicest things I’ve seen added to the scholastic nationals is the “Parents & Friends” side event. It nice seeing a parent, relative, sibling or coach team up with their child and compete in the various catagories. Perhaps more scholastic events should offer these side events. It might be a way to spark some interest in adults. Some scholastic organizations are trying out sections for kids and adults rated over 1600. It gives kids an opportunity to be part of the scholastic scene, but get the opportunity to play different players. The trick is getting the adults to give it a try.
Chess is also different in that a child who plays baseball in middle school will not arrive at high school or college only to discover that there’s no baseball team and that the only people playing baseball are a half-dozen die-hards playing it in the back corner of the cafeteria or the student union.
We probably shouldn’t underestimate the impact of continuity – or the lack of it.
My high school didn’t compete in baseball, only football, basketball and track & field.
I think of 794.1 , a number that’s burned into my memory. Lots of libraries have enough chess books to be useful for a young player, although they probably won’t have exactly the chess book you are thinking of.
See? If it had, you might be playing for the Omaha Royals today.
Naah, the scout from the Braves told me I was too short to be a pitcher and not fast enough to be a shortstop.